


Be My Guest (Until There's Nothing Left)

by Skoll



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bondage, Dark, Dom Hannibal Lecter, Dom/sub, Emotional Manipulation, Episode: s03e05 Contorno, Episode: s03e06 Dolce, M/M, Manipulation, Manipulative Will Graham, Mind Games, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sensory Deprivation, Someone Help Will Graham, Sub Will Graham, Total Power Exchange, We start from Contorno and Dolce and move on from there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:14:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: When Chiyoh reminds Will that violence is hardly the only solution to his problems, Will decides against blunt, simple revenge in Florence, and instead invokes something a bit more old fashioned to deal with Hannibal.  Entering into a total power exchange with a murderous cannibal may not be Will's most rational decision, but it is certainly one that Hannibal finds fascinating--and Will is counting on that.Whether either of them knows what they're getting into is another matter altogether...(Or: A BDSM AU designed to let Will and Hannibal play mind games with each other in Florence.)





	Be My Guest (Until There's Nothing Left)

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of notes, before the chapter.
> 
> First, this story starts in media res, in a BDSM AU which does not get thoroughly explained immediately. I promise that everything about dom/sub dynamics and how they've impacted Will and Hannibal's relationship to this point will get explained in time. Also, as with most BDSM AUs, this should not be taken as a 'how to' guide for D/s relationships. This fic is going to be rife with bad BDSM etiquette and inadequately (or completely non-) negotiated kink, partially because of who Hannibal is, and partially because of the altered world state. Nothing here will be conventionally healthy; don't try this at home; etc.
> 
> Secondly, beyond the BDSM aspect of the AU, we're also going a bit AU with respect to timing of season 3 events. Specifically, Mason's recovery here is slower than it is in canon, and Jack's pursuit of Will is also slower. I wanted time to play while the boys are still in Florence, before adding those complicating factors in.
> 
> Lastly, the title of this story was stolen from a Caravan Palace song called Supersonics. I don't think the song really fits this story tonally at all, but the lyric was a bit too relevant, so here it is.
> 
> Enjoy.

The deciding moment starts like this: they stand as two slim silhouettes against the night, Chiyoh dressed in white and Will in black. The train rocks slightly under them as they speak, but for a long moment it is their only movement. It is Chiyoh who breaks the stillness between them. She lifts a delicate hand--not soft, not after so long fending for herself in the desolate freedom of her mutual imprisonment, but delicate nevertheless--and slides two fingers under the left sleeve of Will’s shirt, pressing them gently to the metal of the cuff against his skin.

Will isn’t sure what he expected of her, but isn’t this: the touch makes him startle slightly, retreating from the point of contact. He’s worn his cuffs a long time, more for the social signal they provide than for any personal meaning. They’re department store quality, nothing special. Time has tarnished them, and perpetual careless wear has bent and dented them; they fit even more poorly now than they did when Will first bought them. Still, despite the fit, he’s worn them long enough that they, like his glasses, are part of the skin of him--the casual disguise of Will Graham, harmless eccentric, which he spent so long pulling over himself that he now can’t recognize himself without it. 

The metal is warm to the touch, after so long pressed close against the heat of him. Only, nobody ever really _touches_ Will Graham. Chiyoh’s made herself the second living person who knows, first hand, how hot that metal feels, where it binds him.

“There are means of influence other than violence,” Chiyoh tells him, and leans close to kiss him.

“But violence is the only one you understand.”

And then she pushes him from the train.

…

Afterward, walking shakily upon the railroad tracks, bruised and admiring--as he so frequently is, these days--Will considers what Chiyoh said.

_Other means of influence_, she’d said, after touching that left cuff so gently.

It’s a worthwhile reminder, for a long walk--if perhaps not the message she meant to give him.

(Almost without thinking, Will pushes back the sleeve on his right arm, and considers the matching cuff there, the one Chiyoh didn’t touch. The laces that tie it shut are frayed, the knot in them efficient rather than beautiful. Will made a decision once, when he bought these matching cuffs--he committed to a specific type of camouflage, choosing to externally mark Will Graham as a Switch, part of a largely unremarkable minority, only one member of a group comprising approximately twenty percent of the American population. It’s been a long time since he actively considered that camouflage.

He considers it now.)

…

Will considers waiting in the Uffizi Gallery for Hannibal--settling himself among beautiful things, and letting Hannibal be the judge of whether he is one of them--but in the end chooses not to. 

It’s too public, for one thing, for the scene Will thinks might unfold. While it would give him the advantage, in that Hannibal would almost certainly give Will time to speak--after all, while Hannibal might choose to display Will’s corpse in front of La Primavera, he would almost certainly consider playing out the messy, intimate act of Will’s murder in front of the painting gauche--Will is aware that giving himself any advantage at all would undermine his sincerity greatly. No, better that he come to Hannibal in private, without protection.

So Will hides himself away in Florence, which is hard enough as a first challenge, being a visibly battered American tourist who speaks about two words of Italian, and those badly accented. Fortunately, Will has money to spare for once in his life, and he lets his cash do the talking where he can’t. He finds a place to stay, which is dingy but not too dingy, and pays in advance. Will keeps his head down. He heals.

Once his bruises are yellowed remnants rather than their original stark black, Will takes on his second challenge: stalking Hannibal, without letting the other man catch his scent.

Finding Hannibal takes little enough doing--there’s a sophisticated new curator in town who recently lectured on betrayal in Dante, which is so patently obvious that Will half wonders if Hannibal wants to be found. Dr. Fell obligingly keeps routines which are simple enough for Will to track from a distance, standing at the counters of cafes and passing in cabs along the street. It would be too indiscrete for Will to trail Hannibal directly to his door, even when it’s that very door that Will is trying to find. Still, Will can piece Hannibal’s steps backwards readily enough that he thinks finding his lavish apartment should be easy, once he’s ready. There will be people who know him, neighbors who can direct Will the rest of the way once he’s close; Hannibal doesn’t exactly easily fade from the memories of others.

That Bedelia lives with Hannibal is a complication. Will considers this, and then puts it aside. If his plan fails, it probably won’t be Bedelia who causes that failure.

His third challenge isn’t really a challenge at all, but Will does his research nevertheless. He grew up in Louisiana, in a small community which never really let its old ways be forgotten, but Hannibal will expect perfection from Will in this, and so Will makes sure he can provide. He reads contemporary discussions and modern analyses; he brushes up on the relevant passages in literature, and particularly in the Bible, as Hannibal’s always had a penchant for irony.

When Will knows his words backwards and forwards--when he’s as ready as he’ll ever be--he spends the last of his money on an exorbitantly expensive suit. It isn’t bespoke, since Will doesn’t have the time or the knowledge he’d need to make that happen, but it’s still practically decadent compared to Will’s normal standards. He does consider, briefly, the wisdom of replacing the cuff on his left wrist, but eventually decides against it. Will doesn’t think he’d be able to satisfy Hannibal there, no matter what choices he makes.

On his last night as a free man, Will pours himself a glass of whiskey, and thinks. He brought a knife with him to the chapel, and he didn’t lose it in the fall. It’s not too late to choose a simple, pyrrhic end to his entanglement with Hannibal Lecter--to meet him in the Uffizi after all, to test their conjoinment on the edge of a blade once Hannibal turns his back. His success in such an attempt is far from guaranteed--but it’s hardly guaranteed in this new way either, and if the knife fails, it’ll at least be a quick failure.

He sips his whiskey, and looks at that knife.

“To other means than violence,” Will toasts to the empty air.

And so, the next evening, Will dresses himself to the nines in a suit more expensive than any he’s ever owned, ties his left wrist carefully into its dented, department store metal cuff, and finds his way to Hannibal Lecter’s door. 

…

When Hannibal opens the door to his apartment early the next morning, he gives no indication of surprise upon finding Will kneeling gently in the doorframe.

Will could look up--if Hannibal really is surprised at all, Will’s fairly certain the only tell would be in the older man’s eyes--but for once, Will’s habit of avoiding eyes works perfectly in his favor. Will does not look up. He keeps himself perfectly still, head bowed.

“Will,” Hannibal says, his tone genial. “I was wondering when you’d grace my doorstep--though I perhaps did not expect you would do so quite so literally. Won’t you come in?”

_Said the spider to the fly_, Will thinks, but does not let himself say.

Will stands in silence, just managing not to stumble as his numb legs take his weight. Whether Hannibal is watching--whether he sees the faint wince on Will’s face when the pins and needles set in--is out of Will’s hands, but Will hopes he does. This is Will’s design, after all. It may be his last. 

He follows Hannibal meekly into the man’s new apartment. That it is opulent comes as no surprise. Will doesn’t bother to look around and take it all in. He’s intimately familiar with Hannibal’s preferred methods of self-portrayal. Nothing here will be new to him, not really.

“May I take your jacket?” Hannibal asks, once Will has stepped into his entryway, and Hannibal has closed the door gently behind them. There’s danger here, in this politesse--with the door closed, Hannibal could as easily put a blade into Will as continue with this pageantry of greeting an old friend--but Will turns his back to Hannibal anyway, and lets the man’s blunt, strong fingers strip away his outer layer. “One moment,” Hannibal says, and steps away, doubtlessly to hang up Will’s jacket, and possibly to come back with whatever tool he deems proper to end Will’s life.

Will doesn’t have much time--at the moment, if his remaining life were to be measured against the length of Hannibal’s curiosity about this latest development, he’s quite certain they’d be one and the same. With sure fingers, he removes his cufflinks, and folds back the sleeves of his absurdly expensive shirt. He steps out of his shoes, and kneels, placing the cuff links in their soles.

From the floor, Will says, clear as a bell, “I come to you with nothing,” and from mere inches away--closer than Will realized--Hannibal’s breath catches quietly in his throat. “I come in penitence, alone.” Hannibal’s shoes cross through Will’s line of sight, and Will pauses, to let Hannibal arrange himself in this moment as he chooses. The fine leather of Hannibal’s shoes nearly brushes Will’s knees.

“From this day forward,” and finally Will looks up, all the way up Hannibal’s immaculately clothed and styled form, to meet Hannibal’s familiar red-brown eyes, “I will know you, and no other.”

It wouldn’t be enough, if Will only meant it in the way the words were originally meant--if he was only promising bodily fidelity, like unfaithful Submissives of old. It wouldn’t be enough, if Will had never known the bite of Hannibal’s knife in the softest parts of him, had never floated in a sea of his own blood as he watched Abigail die on Hannibal’s beautiful kitchen floor. It wouldn’t be enough, if Will hadn’t closed his eyes and touched the still-warm skin of Hannibal’s mutilated heart in Palermo. It wouldn’t be enough, if Will had never taken gentle steps past Mischa’s grave, and heard Chiyoh’s tale of Hannibal’s beginnings.

But Will looks at Hannibal, and lets all of those things--all of that knowing, all of that desperate, painful blurring of self and other--show in his eyes, as he promises to know Hannibal.

Above him, the red-brown is swallowed up in black, as Hannibal Lecter’s pupils dilate, ever so slightly.

“Will you accept me, in my penitence?” Will asks, and his voice does not shake.

Softly, almost tonelessly, Hannibal says, “Yes,” and his hand closes gently on Will’s throat, more a benediction than a stranglehold.

Will closes his eyes, and waits.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far and enjoyed, please do drop me a comment below! I always love hearing from my readers. This is my first time writing in this fandom, so I'll happily take feedback. Also, while I will address any questions people have about the AU in the course of the story and not in the comments, knowing what questions people have at any given point will make addressing them all a lot easier! 
> 
> This story is currently unbetated, so all mistakes are my own. I'm not totally sure about when you should expect the next chapter, but I am very weak for readers enjoying my stories, so if it's decently well liked, it'll probably happen fairly soon.


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